


Atomic Glider

by thingamawhatsit



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lisa Snart Week, M/M, Multi, Slow Burn, Snart Family Feels, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-11 23:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7074301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingamawhatsit/pseuds/thingamawhatsit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While the team is kicked off the Waverider and kickin' it in 2016 Ray realizes that no one has told Leonard's sister about his death, and the person who probably should be doing it -- Mick -- is in no shape to do so.</p><p>So Ray being Ray decides to take the responsibility on himself.</p><p>What starts as Ray's overblown sense of responsibility quickly becomes a personal mission, which quickly turns into family, which not so quickly turns into dating, and love, and family -- again, but this time with paperwork and a really big party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Healthy Case Of Denial

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you to aisaiyat for beta reading this chapter. Any mistakes left are all mine.
> 
> This was written in part for the Snart Family Feels part of Lisa Snart Appreciation Week, even though it's a day late.

By some undeclared consensus no one really tells anyone else about what took place on the Waverider. Ray thinks it’s for the same reason he’s been working on a device to track down the Waverider on the side. Why he’s been keeping tabs on the whole team – what’s left of them, and some more than others – since they were tricked off of their ship. Their home for the last five months.

He can’t tell anyone about what happened because there’s unfinished business. Because the story they have to tell isn’t the full story. Not yet. And the people in their lives deserve better than the story as it is now.

It’s what he tells himself every day that he doesn’t track down Kendra’s family and friends, and tell them that she’s gone.

He’s following Mick – again – when he realizes that it’s not just Kendra’s family that he isn’t telling the story to.

It’s Leonard’s.

And unlike Kendra’s, Leonard’s part of the story is done. Ray knows how it ends.

So the third night they’re back, when he’s helping a very, very drunk Mick back to one of his and Leonard’s safe houses, he decides it’s as good a time as any to broach the subject. Maybe a better time since Mick doesn’t have his heat gun on him.

“Have you told Leonard’s sister? About what happened at the Vanishing Point?”

Mick looks up at Ray from where he was leaning against Ray’s shoulder, and the look in his eyes, even as Mick does his best to keep his face from twisting up in grief, it’s enough to make Ray’s heart clench. He opens his mouth, not really sure what he’s going to say, but knowing he needs to say something, when Mick pukes straight onto Ray’s chest.

Ray cringes, but carries on, getting them both through the safe house door. He gets Mick splayed out on some couch in the middle of a large, mostly empty room where Mick promptly finishes passing out. He takes a moment to peel his shirt off carefully, and then moves Mick so he’s resting on his side, just in case there’s anything else in Mick’s stomach that needs to get out.

Ray plants his hands on his hips and takes a better look at his surroundings. This safe house is much more lived in then the previous ones he’s followed Mick too. The presence of Mick and Leonard much more recent, even for the layer of dust that coats everything. A pile of comics and magazines – everything from Deadpool and Spiderman to Engineering and National Geographic (the latest one, from after it got bought out, covered in various offensive scribblings). A bench filled with tools and small mechanical parts. A few old cars with a pile of license plates next to them. Blueprints and newspaper clippings for an exhibit that arrives in Central within the next month.

He sighs and runs his hand through his hair. Feels a faint smile tug at the corner of his lips. It had amused him, especially as he got to know them better, the way that Mick and Leonard had chosen the same nicknames for people without seeming to consult each other.

He rummages further into the warehouse and finds the bathroom, complete with a well-stocked first aid kit. He shakes out a few Advil, finds a glass set by the toothbrushes (one blue and one red) and fills it up with water.

He sees the bedroom out of the corner of his eye on the way back. Some office that the two of them must have converted. There’s a king sized bed pressed into one corner. A large antique looking armoire. A small side table that looks like second hand IKEA furniture someone might have put out on the street, the top covered in stickers and crayon scribbles. On the wall next to the armoire is a painting of burning buildings with soft lighting underneath that makes the painting glow in the unlit room.

He digs out one of Mick’s tank tops to replace his discarded shirt, avoiding the collection of dark long sleeved shirts that must have been Leonard’s. Mick’s stuff will fit him better, even if taking one of Leonard’s didn’t feel like sacrilege.

He thinks about dragging Mick back to the bedroom.

Thinks about how the bedroom was obviously set up for two rather than one.

Thinks of those first few weeks after Anna died.

He’ll leave Mick on the couch for the time being. He’s not the easiest to move anyway.

It’s only as he’s leaving, picking the water and the meds back up so he can put them somewhere Mick will see when he wakes up, that Raymond sees the photo.

It’s an old photo, worn with creases from being carried around in someone’s wallet before it acquired its gilded frame. A sepia-tinted picture from one of those theme booths where you dress up like you’re in the Old West. Mick and Leonard are dressed similar enough to how they were when they actually _were_ in the Old West that Ray wonders for a moment if they did it on purpose. If it had been some kind of in-joke beyond everyone picking their favorite Old West movies to model the clothes off of. They’re noticeably younger in the picture, each holding their hats against their chests, pretending to be proper gunslingers. The shock of hair on each of them is easy to see as they grin at the camera, holding bags of loot that Ray somehow doubts are props.

But what really catches Ray’s eye is the girl in the picture with them. She looks like she’s a teenager in the photo, maybe sixteen years old. Her hair is curled in tight ringlets, and she’s dressed in one of those old burlesque type dresses, hiked up to show off a length of leg and a thigh holster with a six shooter in it. She’s draped in big, gaudy jewelry that could easily pass as costume if you didn’t know the people in the picture.

It’s the matching grins on her and Leonard’s face that really clue him in the identity of the girl though, for all that it should be obvious.

This is a picture of Leonard’s little sister.

Leonard’s little sister, who doesn’t know what happened to him. Who deserves to know.

But Mick, sawing through logs in the other room after a night of heavy drinking, is in no shape to tell her.

Ray takes a deep breath and sets his shoulders in determination.

If Mick can’t do it – well --- then Ray will just have to do it himself.

 

* * *

 

 

Cold metal presses into the back of Ray’s head and he freezes.

Somehow Ray managed to forget that Leonard’s little sister is a woman, and not still a little girl, or even a teenager like in the picture he saw.

Or well, he didn’t forget, but knowing it and seeing it in person are such different things it feels like he must have forgotten.

Leonard’s sister is very pretty, with a very pretty smile, and very pretty eyes, and hair, and just. She’s very pretty is all he’s saying.

And she definitely knows it.

If he had met her at some fundraiser somewhere he would have happily let her rob him.

Their real meeting is not nearly as happy an occasion.

He had ended up finding her at a bar she’s been frequenting for the last few nights, only to arrive as she was leaving.

So, well, he followed her.

In hindsight -- probably not the best way to start things off.

He rounded a corner after her, jogging a little bit to try and catch up, and promptly fallen flat on his face.

He’d also forgotten that Leonard’s sister was – well _Leonard’s_ sister – and perfectly deadly in her own right.

The gun digging into his back was doing a wonderful job of reminding him.

 “Turn over.”

He does what she says and a spiked heel presses down lightly over his crotch, a gold gun similar to Mick and Leonard’s pointing unwaveringly at his chest.

“Who are you and what do you want?” she asks.

He holds his hands up by his head in surrender. He can definitely see the family resemblance. “My name is Ray. Uh – Raymond Palmer.” He gives her a strained half-smile.

“Raymond Palmer is supposed to be dead,” she says. She rocks her foot slightly, applying the slightest bit more pressure in a way that shouldn’t be anything other than terrifying. Except, well, Mick’s told him plenty of times that his sense of self-preservation leaves something to be desired.

 _I’m not dead,_ he thinks, _I’m just here to tell you that your brother is._ He winces at how bad that sounds, even in his head, and gives a week, lopsided smile when her eyebrow twitches up in response.

“News of my demise has been greatly exaggerated,” he tries, the words coming out weak even to his own ears.

Leonard’s sister does not look impressed.

What was he thinking? He is a horrible person to have break the news to her.

He’s also more or less the only one, so.

“I’m here about your brother.”

Her expression closes off, cold and deadly, and he realizes there are a lot of reasons someone might approach her about her brother besides his own. Most of which would probably give her incentive to pull the trigger on her gun.

He pushes on, forcing the words past his lips. He can feel his face twist down in sadness at the memory. “I was on a mission with him. A job I guess? And it – it went bad.”

She eyes him wearily, brows drawn down, a crack in the mask he doesn’t think he would have seen if he hadn’t lived in close quarters with Leonard throughout the entire debacle with Mick. Something in the eyes, he thinks. “Bad how?” she asks.

He makes himself meet her eyes when he tells her, no matter how much he wants to look away. “He didn’t make it out.”

What expression there was on her face closes down, and she takes a step back. “Get up,” she says, waving with her gun.

It takes him a moment to switch gears, thrown off by her reaction or lack thereof, but he quickly scurries to comply.

“We are going to walk somewhere,” she says. “And when we get there you are going to tell me every single thing that happened. If you leave anything out -- I will kill you. If I find out you lied at any point -- I will kill you. If you had something to do with my brother –“ She stops herself and looks away for a second. When she looks back her eyes are shining with unshed tears, but just as fierce. “ – I will kill you,” she continues.

She flicks something on the gun and it whirrs to life under her hand. “If I decide it will make me feel better -- _I will kill you_. Comprende?”

He nods. She really does remind him of Leonard. And Mick. Especially how they were at the beginning of their journey. “Perfectly,” he says.

 

* * *

 

 

They go back to a small apartment, and he tells her everything, from beginning to end. Except for a few pointed questions she remains silent the whole time, only getting up once to retrieve a bottle of wine she’ll occasionally pass to him when his throat becomes parched.

They sit in silence for a few minutes after he is done, both of them staring into the distance, consumed by some thought or memory just out of sight.

And then Leonard’s sister – Lisa, she told him to call her Lisa – takes one last, long swig out of the wine bottle, draining it of its contents, and nods to herself. She turns to look at Raymond with those same fierce, watery eyes.

“All right Boy Scout, this is what you’re going to do,” she says. “You’re going to finish that device of yours, find your little time ship, and take Micky with you to kill that _bastard_ Savage.”

She rises from where she was sitting and prowls across the meager distance between them on silent, bare feet. She reaches down, using the height difference their position allows her to tower over him, and grabs him by the front of Mick’s now dirty tank top so that her face hovers over his. “And _then_ you are going to use that big brain of yours, and you are going to find Lenny, and you are going to bring him home to me. Because I _refuse_ to believe that blowing himself up in the middle of some _time vortex_ did anything as _mundane_ to my idiot brother as killing him.”

Ray breathes shallowly, his heart and his mind racing. Because well, she’s right isn’t she? They’ve all just assumed that the blast killed Leonard, but it was a blast of _time energy._ Time energy that had been powering the Oculus.  And while he wasn’t affected in the past Ray knows, from conversations on the Waverider, that Leonard was in Central City for both the particle accelerator explosion and the Singularity. The combination of those exposures could have any magnitude of effects.

“You really think?” he asks, still blown away by the idea. Still shocked that none of them thought to _check_ before hand, when they were still near the Vanishing Point, too bogged down by Leonard’s death, by his sacrifice – by _everything_ – to question it.

“I think Lenny is the best there is at getting out of bad situations. If there’s a way – yeah, he’d find it.”

Ray nods absently, mind already spinning through calculations.

Lisa tugs on his borrowed tank top one more time, calling his attention back to her.

“Promise me, Raymond,” she says, unknowingly echoing her brother’s words to him in Russia. “Promise me you’ll do whatever it takes to get my brother back.”

He locks eyes with her, and feels the weight of her words.

But unlike in Russia she isn’t asking him to leave another teammate’s fate to chance – no, she’s asking him to take save his teammate from fate, from destiny.

“I promise.”

“Good. Now get the fuck out of my house, and if you come back without my brother I’m going to turn you into a six foot tall golden statue.”

He smiles, oddly reassured by her threat.

“I promise,” he says again.

He gets up and walks toward the door, but stops just before exiting, a passing thought bringing a smile to his face. “Oh, and by the way,” he says. “I was an Eagle Scout.”

Her eyes scan up and down his body, appraisingly. “Good,” she says. “I wouldn’t trust a boy with this anyway.”

 

* * *

 

 

He spends the next three days in his lab, and then sleeps for twelve hours straight. But when he wakes up he has both a device to track down the Waverider, and the beginnings of a theoretical model of the Oculus based off of observations recorded by his Atom suit.

When he manages to track down Mick again he’s immensely grateful that he took the time to talk to Lisa. It seems that Mick has taken Ray’s absence to try out a new, younger model as a partner – a relationship that goes up in flames pretty quick. Ray can’t really imagine what Lisa would have thought when hearing about the disastrous partnership if Ray hadn’t already explained what happened.

He pays Mick’s getaway driver an obscene amount of money to take his place, and they end up talking at a parking garage on the other side of the city.

“You said Leonard never did anything without a plan. Maybe this is his plan,” say Ray. “Maybe he wanted _us_ to be partners. He knew that I’d look after you, and you’d look after me.”

He can tell Mick isn’t really convinced by that argument, but Ray feels a thrill of excitement at the idea anyway.

If his theory is correct, and Leonard really is alive, then it’s likely that he has similar abilities to those the Time Master’s had when they controlled the Oculus. That Leonard can direct events to at least some extent.

And if that’s the case then it’s likely that Ray meeting up with Mick, and all of his work to find the Waverider and eventually save Leonard are indeed a part of Leonard’s plan. An idea that gains weight in Ray’s mind with every coincidental step in their favor. Meeting the rest of the crew at the same time and place to call the Waverider back. The way his device worked in perfect tandem with Professor Stein’s. Finding Kendra. Discovering Savage’s plan in time. Even the way killing Savage in three times and places conveniently lets all the people who want to kill Savage most have that chance.

 

* * *

 

 

He loves Kendra. He’s sure there will always be a special place in his heart for her.

But whatever Kendra feels for him it isn’t the same. Whatever Kendra feels for him it’s not enough. Not enough for her to share whatever troubles she experiences because of her past lives. Not enough for them to be partners in more than a strictly romantic sense.

His mind strays to Mick and Leonard. The way there were so many layers to their partnership, even if they never would have claimed the romantic aspect out loud. What he had with Kendra seems shallow in comparison, looking at it with the blinders off.

His heart still aches when he says his goodbyes to Kendra. When they break things off officially. But it’s the good kind of ache. Like throwing away a year’s worth of research, and suddenly seeing all the possibilities that were missed trying to maintain a losing position.

Besides. He has a purpose now -- beyond their mission to maintain the time stream.

He’s going to save Leonard Snart, and bring him home to Lisa.


	2. Saving Leonard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there isn't much of either Snart sibling, but they are on everyone's mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again a great big thank you too asimaiyat for beta reading, any left over mistakes are mine.

The first step to retrieving Leonard, once they are back on the Waverider, is to consult with Professor Stein. Outside of Jax and Gideon, both hard to keep secrets from and both sworn to secrecy on the matter, Ray doesn’t tell anyone else.

Rip, Sara, and Mick are far enough into their individual griefs that Ray can’t stand the thought of giving them false hope. Even as he and the Professor make slow but steady progress towards their goal.

The new missions, working to protect the time stream from outside meddling, don’t seem to have the same amount of difficulty or urgency as the mission to stop Savage. The lack of difficulty makes it tempting to just hole himself up in the lab he and the Professor have created on board, but rescuing Leonard is not something that can be achieved at the end of a week-long cram session.

So he needs to sleep, and live off of something other than caffeine. Something he does his very best to remember.

And he needs to be there for his teammates.

Rip, at the very least, seems to have stopped swinging between denial, rage, and depression. He’s more subdued, more morose over all. But he’s stopped watching the holograph of his son as much as he was, and it feels like he’s making his way toward acceptance of his family’s deaths.

Mick and Sara…

Mick and Sara he worries about.

Ray can see them struggling. The losses of Len and Laurel weighing them both down.

The two commiserate together more often than not. Drinking. Fighting – both other people and sparring with each other, the intensity of which regularly sends them to Gideon for medical attention. Both struggling with their inner demons in the wake of tragedy.

Ray does what he can to help.

On the field that translates to Ray and Sara keeping a closer eye on Mick. Watching for the moments when he loses himself in the flames of their battle, and flanking him until he pulls himself out. It translates to Ray and Mick being quicker to deal a lethal blow, leaving fewer living opponents to call upon Sara’s bloodlust.

Off the field Ray does his best to make sure that they eat. Mostly he brings a greasy breakfast and lots of water to whichever room Mick and Sara crashed in after their latest drinking binge. He’ll walk in, a tray ladened with food, and separate in quietly onto three plates. All the while keeping a soft, running commentary on whatever random subject he can think of – usually something about the time they’re visiting and the scientific discoveries that were being made.

As the weeks drag on Mick and Sara start to settle into something of a routine, staying in Mick’s room rather than Sara’s or Leonard’s, even on nights when they haven’t been drinking together.

The breakfasts with Ray similarly stray from hangover aftercare to a regular morning routine. The three of them enjoying breakfast together in Mick’s room – Mick and Sara’s room at this point – before facing whatever the day has in store for them.

Some days that’s more difficult than others.

But they manage. They survive. They look out for each other.

Ray likes to think that’s a part of Leonard’s plan.

 

* * *

 

 

Three months into their new journey, and three months of slow and steady work on getting Leonard back, Ray walks into Mick’s room to see if he wants to eat dinner together – Ray’s having a craving for tacos – when he walks in and sees Mick carefully taking apart and cleaning the cold gun.

Mick looks up, his expression guarded in a way that exposes the complicated emotions tied up in the action. “What do you want, Hairstyle?”

“The cold gun!” he says. Stops himself at the rigid line of Mick’s back, the way he’s avoiding eye contact. Ray stutters incomprehensibly for a moment, accompanied by an excited but meaningless flutter of his hands. “Particle – particle deceleration – and Cisco said – the Speed Force – which – and then with dissonance in the time stream vector field – if we can find a way to resonate it!”

Mick raises an eyebrow at him. “You having some kind of a stroke?”

Ray smiles. “Only a stroke of genius!” He rocks back and forth in the doorway, debating on asking Mick for the cold gun now versus later. But asking for the cold gun would mean explaining why, and Ray isn’t quite prepared for that conversation yet. “I have to go,” he says. “Science calls!”

He gets halfway down the hall and turns back. Opens up the door to Mick’s room again and sticks his head in. “But I’ll be back,” he assures. “Later. After.” He rolls his hand in what he considers a universal gesture for ‘sciencing that needs to done,’ and leaves once more.

Left alone in his room Mick shakes his head at the disassembled cold gun. “What I’d do that you thought I deserved being left with him? Huh, Snart?”

Mick sighs at the echoing silence in response.

 

* * *

 

 

As soon as he sees it, it makes so much sense. The dead ends and the unknowns unravel before him on the wonderful scrolling whiteboard where he never runs out of space. He makes a side note as he refills his coffee to invent just such a whiteboard whenever he gets back to 2016 more permanently. It’s wonderful for maintaining focus when he has a breakthrough. No distractions as you run out of space for formulas, and no upset janitors when you are driven to write on the walls rather than interrupt the flow of discovery.

Occasionally he tinkers with small experiments, scavenging the necessary parts from his Atom suit and non-essential equipment on the Waverider – no one uses the toaster anyway – to prove small sections of his theory, or get feedback data for minor corrections.

The entire thing is coalescing in front of him like a work of art. Complex equations simplifying down into compact terms that model natural phenomena -- that interact with each other like a spiraling dance.

Martin comes in at some point – and Ray can’t even be distracted enough to remember the random thrill that he still gets at being on a first name basis with him after so many long nights working away at this together – and silently goes over the new work that Ray has done.

There’s a whisper of “Astounding!” and Martin starts to make notes on a small tablet that shows Ray’s work, which are then sent back to the whiteboard he’s working on.

Martin leaves, and comes back, and leaves again, but Ray pays only enough attention to furiously scribble out any necessary responses generated by the notes he leaves.

He is making such _wonderful_ progress. It’s invigorating. Exhilarating.

When the door slides open again he barely notices.

When his whiteboard shuts off, and the lights dim, he screeches like cat tossed in a bathtub full of water.

“No! What? _Why?_ ” He paws briefly at the blank screen, horror and despair etched across his face.

All of that _work_. And he’d been _so_ close. So _very, very_ close.

He can feel the tears beginning to sting at the corners of his eyes.

“Time for bed, Einstein.”

He turns to see Mick standing in the doorway, arms crossed and a Very Unimpressed look set on his face.

Mick! Mick is responsible for this somehow. For the disruption and Ray’s disappearing notes.

Ray shakes his head. He needs to keep working. He just needs to make Mick _see_. “I’ll sleep later. I promise. I just need to pull an all-nighter – just this once. Really.” He turns back to the blank screen, unable to keep the note of distress out of his voice. “Just turn it back on, yeah?”

“Kid, you’ve been in here for two days.”

“I – _What?_ ” That couldn’t be right.

Mick shakes his head, and walks into the room. “Yeah, you’re done.”

He grabs Ray by the shoulder and starts to guide him out of the room, but Ray twists in his grip. “But I’m so close. I almost have a way to get him back!”

Mick stops short, his grip on Ray’s shoulder going painfully tight for a moment. “What are you talking about ‘a way to get him back?’”

Ray hesitates for a moment, but he’s getting to the point where filling in the others is inevitable. He’s so close, and if Ray just tells Mick what he’s working on surely Mick will let him keep working.

“I don’t think Leonard’s dead,” he explains. “I think something happened to him, when the Oculus exploded. And I think I can get him back.” He looks at Mick, wide-eyed and earnest. “Mick, I’m so close to getting him back.”

Ray has imagined this moment a lot. Not the bleary eyed confrontation after a two day science binge, but telling Mick about Leonard, about the chance they have of saving him, of him not being dead. And he’s imagined all sorts of reactions on Mick’s part. He’s imagined Mick looking happy at the news, or hitting Ray on the arm for not telling him sooner. He’s imagined Mick giving him a big, excited hug, or saying something meaningful in that way he has where he won’t look you in the eye. He even imagined Mick crying once, which had been kind of weird, even though Ray thinks Mick could probably do with a good cry at this point.

Instead Mick just looks…old.

Old and sad. Like he’s been around so long he doesn’t have any hope left in him.

It makes Ray’s chest hurt, and his eyes begin to sting again.

Already distressed by what he had initially thought was a computer melt down -- the likes of which Ray hasn’t experienced since he lost half his thesis paper to Window’s Vista -- and having apparently been up for more than two days straight, Ray goes with his instinctual reaction of hugging away the hurt.

He’s distantly surprised when his hands meet each other behind Mick’s back, some part of him expecting to be rebuked, but quickly settles in to give Mick The Best Hug Ever while he still can, hooking his chin over Mick’s shoulder in a way he almost never gets to considering his height. Mick is stiff under his touch for a few moments, his breathing loud in Ray’s ear, and then his body seems to sag under the weight of it all, unwinding like an out of tune guitar string. A puff of breath passes across Ray’s neck, and Mick raises one hand to pat Ray on the back.

“C’mon. Bed. You can explain –“ Mick cuts himself off with a shake of his head, stepping back and out of Ray’s embrace. “We’ll talk about this shit in the morning,” he says, avoiding Ray’s eyes.

Ray bites his lip. “Yeah, okay.” He wants to keep going, but he doesn’t have it in him to fight with Mick, not when he has such a fragile look on his face.

They walk together to the hallway where their rooms are. Ray turns to say goodnight and slip into his room, only for Mick to grab hold of his arm again, dragging him down a few more doors. Mick shoves Ray into his own room, earning the both of them a raised eyebrow from Sara, already dressed for bed in one of Mick’s shirts.

Mick must see the confused look on Ray’s face, because he explains without prompting. “Like I trust you to stay the fuck in bed and sleep. You’ll be back in that lab before I finish turning my back.”

Which, okay, fair point.

Sara huffs a laugh at them, and puts away the book she had been reading. “If you’re staying the night then you get the wall,” she tells Ray.

He should probably protest the spending the night bit. Instead he asks, his voice curiously questioning, “Why do I get the wall?”

Mick grunts, stripping down to his boxers for sleeping. “Sara gets the door, and it’s best you aren’t next to her if she wakes up fighting.”

“Mick’s good at staying alive,” says Sara, a satisfied smile on her lips.

Mick grunts, and throws a pair of sweatpants at Ray. “Hurry up and get changed.”

Ray obliges in a bit of a daze, and shortly finds himself tucked against the wall where a picture of a burning forest glows softly. Mick and Sara pile in after, and Ray finds himself the littlest spoon in a three spoon stack.

“This is weird,” he says. It’s not the weirdest thing ever, but Ray is pretty sure it’s still a little weird.

“Shut the fuck up, and go to sleep.”

Ray shuts the fuck up, and goes to sleep.

Weird or not, it’s pretty nice.

 

* * *

 

 

They talk over breakfast the next morning.

Ray explains about tracking down Lisa, about her denial of Leonard’s death, but also how much sense it made. How he thinks it might be a part of Leonard’s plan to get back to them. All the things that have lined up a little too well for them – the good luck and happenstance that have made things smooth sailing from the moment they all got back together.

How the science – the theory at least – seems to support his conclusions. The work that he and Martin have been doing together to see if they can bring Leonard back. The breakthrough he had upon seeing Mick working with the cold gun.

Everything.

Sara shuts down, her face still and expressionless.

Mick’s face is a mixture of guilt and relief when Ray talks about Lisa, but is otherwise a mask. The fragile barrier between himself and the feeling of hope.

At the end of Ray’s explanation they sit in silence.

Finally Mick speaks. “Get Rip and the Professor,” he says.

At the end of another explanation – this one detailed enough on the science involved for Rip and Mick to add in their own knowledge of time travel – there is a reluctant spark in Mick’s eye.

Ray feels like he could fly to the moon under his own power. The conversation, far from wasting time, actually solves the last lingering problem that he and Martin faced. They have a device built by the end of the week.

Unfortunately for the device to work the best time and place to use it is the Vanishing Point, Leonard’s last location. A time and place still infested with Time Masters who would be happy to see their entire crew dead.

It’s decided that Mick and Ray will go in with the device, shrunk down for easy transport as it takes up about six cubic feet, while the rest of the crew distracts the Time Masters by generally kicking their asses, and stealing a few useful items so it doesn’t seem like the distraction it is. Plus they all figure Leonard would appreciate stealing being a key part of the plan.

Ray is mostly there in case something needs to be fixed quickly, and to watch Mick’s back if anyone shows up. Mick, dressed in his Chronos suit, the only clothing they have that includes some protection from time radiation, will be the one activating the device.

The room the Oculus was in is oddly barren. At least until you look down. The center, including the island where the Oculus once stood, is pristine in its emptiness, but about twenty feet out a black ash stains the floor, and the shadows of the Time Masters’ soldiers become visible, etched into the ground and up the walls.

Ray sets down the device in the center of the island, and unshrinks it with a quick beam from his suit. Then he backs up, leaving Mick to do his part.

Ray’s heartbeat echoes loudly in his ears over the low thrum of the device powering up, and he forces himself to look away, to keep an eye out for any interlopers.

If this works they get Leonard back. If it doesn’t…

If it doesn’t work then Ray should probably avoid Central City for the near future.

Near future being relative to 2016 of course, rather than the Vanishing Point, which he’s pretty sure doesn’t actually have a future by definition.

The thrum increases to a heavy hum that resonates along the edges of his suit, and a blue light bursts forth, casting eerie shadows along the room. A chill creeps up his spine, and his breath fogs up in front of him. Frost inches over the floor and crunches under his feet as he shifts from foot to foot, grateful that his suit has an internal heating unit.

The hum becomes a sharp whine, and then a scream, and then a thousand different screams, different voices, different pleas. The shadows dance, and start to meld with the charred images left by the explosion, until the charred shadows seem to reach out for him, arms reaching and mouths open in endless agony.

Ray takes a step back, his feet almost losing traction on the slick ice that has formed. He holds his arm up, aiming at the shadows, ready to fire, but wary of shooting when he doesn’t know what effect it will have. If it will cause any damage to the wraith like creatures that seem to be appearing, or if it will just incite them to attack.

He can hear Mick behind him, but he doesn’t dare to take his eyes off of whatever it is that’s going on in front of him.

“Len!?” screams Mick. “Lenny, I swear, I will beat the crap out of you!”

Mick’s always been great with motivational speeches.

The screaming intensifies to the point where Ray’s teeth ache with it, and the blue light flashes blindingly. The wraiths take form in front of him, leaving behind a clean ice covered stone. But before the forms get close enough that he has to shoot something happens. The screams change pitch, a high note that Ray feels more than hears, and the wraith like figures turn away as one, fleeing from some unknown terror only to be dragged back in a whirlwind of light and sound.

Ray puts a hand up to cover his eyes, and watches as the last of the wraith like creatures digs its claw like hand into the ice -- but even that does nothing but delay the inevitable.

Slowly it’s dragged across the room, its claws against the ice adding the noise of nails on chalkboards to the deafening symphony, and it’s drawn into the pillar of blue green light in the center of the room.

A few moments more, and the light dies out with a flicker.

There, on the center platform, Mick holds a frail looking body against his chest.

Mick doesn’t waste a moment, striding past Ray with quick, heavy steps. “Get your shit and let’s go.”

Ray hurries over and grabs the device, shrinking it down once more.

They leave the room behind them, their footprints and the claw marks slowly melting away, leaving the room spotless and empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooo I may have made Time Wraiths? At this point I've only watched the episodes in season one of the Flash that have the word Rogue in the title (thank you Netflix), but I hear that like most timey-wimey things in this verse they aren't well explained if at all, and I think that this works. Yay? Nay?  
> Maybe they shall be the time wraiths cousins once removed.

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a crack pairing idea, took off with a fix it fic, and decided to swim around in all sorts of feels. End game here is Ray/Lisa, including a small "Say Yes To the Dress" type fic where "businessmen" Len and Mick take Lisa dress shopping, because you can't steal couture. 
> 
> Anyone who has any ideas for Ray's and Lisa's first date please feel free to pitch in!


End file.
